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David A King

Professor of the History of Science and Director of the Institute since 1985. Specialist on medieval Islamic science, Arabic scientific manuscripts and medieval Islamic and European scientific instruments. Lectures and seminars on aspects of medieval astronomy, astronomical instruments, Arabic scientific texts and manuscripts. (Source)

Authored

Banner: General view of Petra with a graphic from the article (Source)
Preliminary note: Dan Gibson’s new book claims to turn upside down all of what we know about one aspect of early Islamic practice, namely, the sacred direction (qibla) toward the Kaaba in Makka. He believes that Islam began...

Figure 1. An illustration of the stars of one of the lunar mansions (al-haq`a) in an Egyptian treatise on folk astronomy. The table on the right identifies the mansions culminating, rising and setting, and the mansions opposite them (at 180°) at different times of the night when the sun is...

[This feature was prepared by Prof. David A. King of Frankfurt. His research since about 1970 has focussed on what he calls “astronomy in the service of Islam“, a topic mainly neglected by other historians more interested in planetary astronomy or theoretical astronomy or transmission or...

Foucault's Pendulum, Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology, Milan, Italy
Photo by Ben Ostrowsky
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[Note of the Editing Manager] This article was originally published as: David A. King, "Ibn Yūnus and the Pendulum: A History of Errors” in "Archives...

Introductory remarks
"The ancients distinguished themselves through their chance discovery of basic principles and the invention of ideas. The modern scholars, on the other hand, distinguish themselves through the invention of a multitude of scientific details, the simplification of difficult (...